


Wolf Spirit

by FenVallas



Series: Tales of Elvhenan [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Arlathan, Character Study, Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 8,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3900766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FenVallas/pseuds/FenVallas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No designation fit him better than Fen'Elgar. Whatever he had been before, he had thrown it away, and nothing could take him from this idyllic life. </p><p>Nothing, perhaps, but the promise of intrigue, of the chance to learn. </p><p>But how was he to know he had grown powerful? Without a benchmark, how was he to realize?</p><p>And how was he to know that into his mouth she breathed the breath of Divinity?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fen'Elgar

He was known as Fen’Elgar.

It was for good reason that designation belonged to him, and he to that designation, for he was as untamed as the wolf and as enigmatic as a spirit. He was not a shy creature, but he was cautious by nature, and perhaps a bit avoidant of the villages filled with people who looked like him to whom he did not belong.

They were loud.

Too loud.

Just as those he might have once called “babae” and “mamae” had been loud in the wrong ways. He craved fast an interesting, but interesting was quiet, and it wasn’t tethered to a smile, to a grating voice and false affections. Interesting wasn’t people, not the ceremonies they seemed to stand upon or the way they had mocked his interests.

 _“You’re too young to know what you really want,”_ they would say, and they would mean well by it.

He knew they meant well because they were smiling so gently, but sometimes being genteel and polite and well-meaning was just as damaging as a slap. It was a form of pleasant control, a shackle that they placed around his neck to tether him with their affections when he had started to manifest an interest in spirits and magic and the mysterious beyond the trappings of society.

_“Spirits are dangerous things meant only for gods and warriors. You live on a farm. You do the work of a farmer. We use our magic for raising crops, just as it always has been, just as it will always be.”_

And for a time he had listened, he had believed, sincerely, that what they said had been the best for him, but the more he spoke to spirits (in secret, dark places) the more he wanted to speak to them. Eventually, it had not been enough; eventually he realized that things should not stay a certain way simply because that was the way they had always been.

He had thrown away his old designation, thrown away “babae” and “mamae” and the farm and all that had come with it and set out on his own.

No, not on his own.

He had the spirits.

They were his friends, and where he was deficient in one area, they would help him improve, Wisdom teaching him patience, Purpose directing his thoughts, never judging him, never attempting to placate him with kind words meant to keep him bound. Yes, he learned much from his friends, the spirits, who had shaped the man he had become.

But they could not care for his needs, they could not clothe him and teach him to hunt, and that was why he observed the wolves, learned to take their shape and become like they were. If he had a need to eat, they showed him how to hunt game large and small. If he needed physical contact, he would sleep among their ranks, warm and secure.

And they did not judge him.

This was all that he needed.


	2. Topaz

 

Or he thought it had been all he needed until he began to stagnate.

It was a slow process, but he acknowledged it one day when he could no longer ignore the slow ticking of time in the back of his mind, how the world seemed to slow to the same standstill it had existed in on the farm. He hated the equilibrium, loathed how the seconds slithered by – no, not slithered, snakes were too quick – slid by like snails, dragging on until his frustration mounted into a palpable sensation.

He climbed trees, ran with the wolves, spoke to his friends the spirits, but nothing alleviated the pressure.

It was Wisdom who suggested he leave, and Purpose who pushed him to do so, though he felt nothing but regret. He remembered, at the time he had left the farm he had also felt sad, though it was not for leaving behind those people, but rather the expectation that he should feel sorrow at leaving his “family”.

This was different.

Ancient trees were home. Hunting white tailed deer with four legs and a gaping maw, watching them run, snapping at their heels, feeling his muscles ripple as he sped after them, fury and fur and power. That sensation was home, as home as his conversations with the spirits, the dialogue that never ended and had once provided him more knowledge than he could articulate.

Two legs were awkward. He felt less graceful, less at home, less himself, and realized that perhaps that feeling was a problem.

Should he not, upon reflection, be more comfortable in the form he was born in?

Should he not know more of The People than he did?

For the first time, he felt real fear, fear that he would be rejected, fear that he would not be able to learn anything from this encounter. It was daunting, for he had never really been afraid of anything before, but Wisdom reminded him that learning could be painful, and that he should find himself changed very shortly if he embraced the unknown.

So he set out, creeping along the edges of society, only entering a small city when he heard whispers of a procession that caused his curiosity to overcome caution.

From the shadows, Fen’Elgar watched, wrapped in furs, fortunate that the attention of the citizens was drawn by the liter and the woman upon it, or he would certainly have drawn curious stares.

He was close enough to see her face clearly, a beautiful, proud woman with narrow eyes and long, black hair that pooled about her waist as she sat. Men and women emblazoned with tattoos (branches twining over their brows) carried her through the city.

What their destination was, Fen’Elgar could not say for certain, but he knew beyond a doubt she was among those his “parents” had called “tulean”, the Creators. She was too beautiful, too ethereal, to belong among these plain people.

Her eyes were suddenly upon him, and the world stopped.


	3. A Gift

That night, she found him.

Not one of her guards, with their shining armor and their tattoos, but the woman herself, walking through the trees so silently she seemed to float. With her came a mist and the sort of power that made him tremble (though in fear or in awe, he did not know). Her eyes glowed in the darkness, not the reflective green glow that all the people possessed, but a white-hot glow that seared him and seemed to peer into his soul.

“Tell me, Little Wolf,” she said, stopping only a few paces form him. “How is it that you speak so easily to spirits? I heard them whispering of you as soon as I arrived.”

“Why shouldn’t I speak to spirits?” He asked, lifting his chin to stare her in the eye despite her overwhelming presence that seemed to press in on him from all sides.

His question made her laugh, a curiosity that sent spirals of anxiety through his gut and into his limbs. What had he said that was so funny? He couldn’t imagine that it was that amusing. Not in the slightest.

“Why shouldn’t you, indeed,” she said, sitting upon a stump and crossing one leg over the other, her eyes penetrating and keen. “Tell me, what do you call yourself, young man? Surely you have a designation.”

“Fen’Elgar,” he said, holding his head high despite the waves of anxiety that threatened to undo him.

He communed with spirits, but this woman was neither flesh nor spirit. He felt her energy ripple through the Beyond, and knew she was both and neither, flesh and spirit both, transcendent in ways that seared his magical senses and prevented him from sensing anything else save for the overwhelming presence of **_her_**.

“Fen’Elgar.” The name rolled off her tongue as though she could taste it. “I’m not certain it suits you. The Wolf designation, certainly, but…” Her eyes, like burning topaz in her skull, slid over him, knowing. “You are not a spirit, little child.”

He said nothing, having nothing to say to her, though he wondered what it was she wanted with him. Why had she sought him out? She, of all people?

“Tell me, Little Wolf, would you like a gift?”

In hindsight, he realized he should have been wary, that a gift from a silver-tongued goddess was hardly a gift at all, but a contract of expectation. At that moment, however, he was intrigued, and looked toward her with curiosity that prompted her to continue.

“I can open your senses, Little Wolf, make you see as you have never seen before. If magic and understanding are your desire, I can give you both.” She stood, and her hips swayed as she walked toward him, standing so close her power made him physically tremble. “And in return, all I ask is one favor.”

A favor? For the power she offered?

He nodded, not comprehending, not understanding, not truly, simply thirsting for knowledge.

“Say the words, Little Wolf.”

He spoke.


	4. Boundless

Pain scorched through his veins like a fire, branding the inside of him until he felt that he might burst out of his flesh into a mass of white-hot and vast energy. How his flesh contained him, he did not know, and he writhed on the ground, clawed at the dirt, aware of nothing but the yellow eyes burning above him and the memory of her kiss on his brow. It felt like a brand, pulsing, surging, until somehow the power within him settled and he was aware of the buzzing energy of everything organic, the threads that tied the world together.

It is a song, and now it sung through him and he sung with it, his soul larger than the confines of his skin.

“How do you feel?”

He looked up into her face and found that her power did not burn him any longer, and that his own crashed against hers in waves equal, through her mastery was greater. For a moment, he was so distracted by this sudden realization that he fumbled with the words and a means to answer.

How did he feel?

It was a loaded question.

He felt… everything. The music of reality was no longer lost on him, and the spirits such with it and because of it, inorganic and organic bound together by a thread that he had not been able to detect before. He was a part of it all now, as large as the sky and as small as the particles of dust floating in the air.

“Boundless,” he answered in a rush of breath, his body still shaking with the aftershocks of the power that had rushed through him and, he realized, Raised him.

“You’re handling this quite well,” mused the woman who was a goddess, circling him with a look of approval on her face as he raised himself to his feet. “I’ve seen this before. Usually there’s more… panicking.”

“Why?” he asked, aware of every brush of her energy against the Beyond, and of the own pulsing center of his soul – and he realized that if he wished, he could slip through into the Beyond, something impossible before no matter how it tugged at him. “Why have you done this?”

“Why? That is always the question, isn’t it?” She walked toward him, close enough that he could feel the heat radiate form her body, and looked up into his eyes, though he hadn’t realized until just this moment that he was taller. “Fate, perhaps? Chance? You have an air of destiny about you, Little Wolf. I’m simply helping destiny make up its mind.”

“You said you wanted a favor?” he asked her, trying and failing to fight against the dizzying weight of her words. “I am not sure what one such as I can offer you.”

The goddess laughed and grinned, shaking her head, the sound of her voice echoing about the clearing and making his soul shiver inside of his flesh.

She smiled a reptile’s grin – his answer.


	5. Laid Low

He shivered but not from cold, sitting beside her on her liter and feeling ridiculous with the eyes of all the people of the city upon him. He’d no idea, really, how things had worked before she’d explained them, having developed in isolation. He hadn’t known what being born in her Ward meant for him, that hers was one of several, small, loosely connected settlements that often warred amongst each other but worked together against common threats –

A Federation of God-States, she’d called it.

What the power was, she could not rightly say, nor where it had come from. Once the world had swirled with nothing, and perhaps she and her husband were **_born_** of that magic. Regardless, he now sat as the eighth of their ilk, and like all the others, she had breathed into him the breath of that primordial magic, that song, that bound all things living and not together.

That made her his mother, she’d said, and Fen’Elgar had not been certain what that meant.

“They stare at you because you are unlike the others,” she whispered in a silken voice, grasping his arm, perhaps to steady him and stop his shaking. “The others were nobles, rewarded for their exemplary services. But you…”

Fen’Elgar was a commoner, Raised for what was supposedly no visible reason, and certainly no reason anyone but the woman beside him could discern.

Her grip on his arm tightened almost painfully for an instant and his eyes were drawn from the dozens of dirty faces. She held his gaze, the slant of her jaw proud, the wicked smile from the clearing long gone from her lips, replaced by something grim and far more sincere.

Something far more chilling.

She drew him closer, bent him so that she could whisper in his ear.

“You have no idea what you **_are_** , child,” the woman’s voice was hot against his ear, but it only made him shiver more. “You have mastered magic most people fumble with their whole lives, hoping for the eyes of one of their gods to look upon them favorably.”

“Are you saying I should be grateful?” he asked her, looking straight ahead, thinking how absurd he must look –

A man with matted auburn hair and robes roughly hewn together from furs and leathers, covered in brambles and dust. A wild hermit, Raised to the level of a god, and for what? His _magic_?

“You asked for this,” the goddess said. “Whether or not you wish to show gratitude is up to you. I seek only to make you aware of your rarity, and the consequences of such power.”

“You _deceived_ me,” he told her, voice low and hard, though his body still trembled.

Her laughter was soundless, but he felt it through his entire body. “You accepted my offer, Little Wolf, yet never asked for clarification. You never considered the wisdom of your actions, but jumped at the chance for knowledge without hesitation.”

Fen’Elgar grew silent, shamed by her words but too prideful to admit it.


	6. Alone

“You will bathe and put on new robes,” the goddess said that night as they found lodging more impressive than anything he had ever seen, though she assured him it was quite humble – the city was too small to offer anything truly grand.

Fen’Elgar was too tired to argue with her, and the shaking in his body would not subside long enough for him to think of anything much beyond the current moment. He was sullen, withdrawn, and furious with himself for allowing such foolishness and resigned that his fate was going to be an unpleasant one.

He could not imagine himself as the leader of people like her servants, the strange men and women whose faces bore branches branded onto their skin in every shade of grey, green, and yellow he could imagine. He knew they were bound to her will, that they were her slaves, by the way they followed her every order without question. Fen’Elgar could not picture himself sitting on a throne or giving out orders, and already chaffed at the restraints he had allowed to be slipped out his wrists for a taste of knowledge.

It was the servants who asked him for what size robes he wore, all while the goddess ordered his furs burned. He was forced to answer that he did not know, and so they measured him so that someone could go **buy** him new clothing. It would not be up to the standard of the divine, but it would be better than presenting him while he still looked as though he had walked out of the forest, even if he had walked from the forest.

What her intent was he did not know, but he did not ask.

He wasn’t sure she would give him a straight answer even if he did.

Soon, he was alone, up to his neck in a tub of hot water, his eyes staring blearily at a wall. The shaking and tension in his muscles subsided, and he submerged himself for a moment, the heat almost stinging him. For as long as he could clearly remember, he’d only bathed in cold streams or small creeks, the water so cold that if you bathed on the wrong day you could die from freezing. Even before then, he’d bathed in dirty, already used water, the oldest in a house full of poor farmer children, taking care of the youngest as they bathed.

He wondered, briefly, what had happened to his siblings.

Pulling his knees to his chest, he rested his head against them, his breath coming out in shuddering gasps as he fought against a kind of isolation he had never felt before in his entire life. He’d spent so much time alone that he didn’t know he was capable of such a feeling, but apparently being among people only served to highlight his differences.

He longed for the Spirits and his forest, he longed from the companionship of the wolves, who never judged him and always welcomed him with maws open, tongues hanging out in a friendly grin.

Fen’Elgar cried until the water grew cold.


	7. Silver Gates

They rode together, Fen’Elgar silent and resigned to his position, though he longed to be sleek and furred and muscled instead of suffering saddle sores. He didn’t bother to mention the Wolf, knew that his form would spook even the most docile halla, so he grasped the reigns the creature had magnanimously allowed itself to be fitted with and stared straight ahead, sullen.

“So cheery,” said the goddess, glancing at him from the corner of his eye. “I take it you are not accustomed to riding?”

He arched his eyebrows at her and she laughed. Around them, morose riders in dark cloaks and golden armor rode, pretending that their lady wasn’t conversing.

“You never rode before you left whatever life I presume you knew before the forest?”

“No,” he said, looking away from her, staring straight ahead into the line of trees. “I was born on a farm. We used our animals to assist with the harvest. Nothing like this.”

“A farm?” Her eyes, which before he had found so very penetrating, barely affected him despite their apparently scrutiny, “You truly are something of an uncultured wild man, aren’t you? I imagine that Sylaise will not be pleased with me at all.”

He was sorely tempted to be insulted, but had to admit that she was correct. Fen’Elgar did not know the first thing about all the manners gods and goddesses were likely required to have. The richest man and woman in town had owned the mill, and they had not lived in anything close to the resplendence the divine must call their own.

“You are taking me to another of your kin?” He asked instead, attempting to keep the resentment from creeping into his voice – He could accept responsibility for his own mistakes. He had to.

“Sylaise. Goddess of Magic and the Hearth,” said the woman, her eyes sliding over him again, tracing the lines of his face, and while her penetrative gaze no longer bothered him, the scrutiny almost certainly made him uncomfortable. “Will she be able to tame you, Wolf? Turn you from a recluse into an acceptable landowner and figurehead?”

He answered almost without thinking, regretting the words the moment they left his mouth. “I doubt it.”

The Mother only laughed, the sound echoing about the cultivated trees on either side of the path, spooking birds from their perches. “You’re quite correct,” in the shadow of the trees, her eyes seemed to glow. “I doubt you’ll ever lose that wild side, Little Wolf. In fact… I hope you don’t.”

He didn’t respond, choosing to focus on the horizon rather than continue the conversation. The wind tussled his hair and the path grew less wild, the buzz of magic pressing against Fen’Elgar’s skin and filling him with quiet wonder in the bright and lazy afternoon.

This place was beautiful, and it was farther from home than he had ever been, and though there was something magnificent about it, he couldn’t help but feel his apprehensions double as the wrought silver gates came into sight.


	8. Hearthkeeper

The woman was there to greet them beyond the vast gardens that seemed to engulf the estate, standing in front of a manor that was more temple than home. She was pale and dark haired, with sharp but somehow delicate features and feline eyes that Fen’Elgar could not help but feel held a shrewdness that was masked by her carefully painted face.

“Mythal,” she greeted, her eyes sliding over him for an instant before meeting the gaze of the **_other_** goddess, undaunted. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I have a favor to ask,” the goddess Mythal cut straight to the chase, dismounting as he himself slid from the saddle. “I would be bound to repay you.”

“Bound?” The woman who was Sylaise stepped forward even as Mythal pressed a hand in between his shoulder blades and pushed him toward her. “A gift from The Mother? Truly a boon.”

There was something in the smooth, almost honeyed, voice that set Fen’Elgar on edge and made him believe Sylaise’s sentiment wasn’t entirely sincere. Mythal, however, simply smiled and laughed, the loud laugh that shook the trees. “Sylaise, you can’t abandon him.”

Sylaise looked toward him again, and for an instant than spanned an age, she held his eyes. He felt her will flare against his, testing him, and his magic flared almost without prompting in response to her challenge.

 _“What have you done?”_ Her response was little more than a hiss of breath that escaped between her teeth, and for a moment, Fen’Elgar almost thought he was addressing her.

It was only Mythal speaking that shattered his trance.

“It needed to be done,” Mythal said, her voice oddly shrewd and far-off, her liquid eyes the most piercing he had ever seen them. “The Beyond itself demanded it. This time it was not my meddling.”

Pressure filled the air, energy jumping between the goddesses with an intensity that nearly left him breathless, as unused to it as he was. Their wills did battle, Sylaise a calm, controlled flame, Mythal burning like a pale moon reflecting the glory of the heavens, testing one another. He wasn’t certain how long the three of them stood there before Sylaise turned her green eyes away from Mythal and looked toward him for a third time.

He wasn’t certain how he knew, but he sensed her acquiescence.

“This is going to take a great deal of work,” the Hearthkeeper clucked, striding toward him to tug at the fabric of the clothing he had patched together himself. “Look at him, Mythal! His hair is full of brambles and he’s wearing furs hewn together so roughly that they look as though they could fall apart at any moment.”

“It is true he’s rough around the edges,” Mythal’s topaz eyes turned to him again, a curious expression almost akin to pride shining somewhere in their depths. “Though in this case, roughness may be exactly what we all need.”

Fen’Elgar was too confused, too numb, to feel much of anything when Mythal turned back to her valets.

“Send me a missive when you’ve completed.”

He was in Sylaise’s hands now.


	9. The First to Go

He was not a timid person, but in the last few days he had grown cautious. The forest had been a place for bold action, for risk and reward, but following behind the Goddess of the Hearth was more daunting than any forest beast. He would have lost himself had he stopped to think about the enormity of his situation.

So instead of focusing on the cavernous halls of the open and airy estate that seemed to serve as a temple, instead of paying mind to the many adorned faces about him, Fen’Elgar watched the swirling skirts of the Goddess.

They were made of a fabric that almost flickered like flame as she moved, seamless red and gold, sometimes blue where the light hit them, long beams through the gaps in pillars that made the air dance with dust. It was beautiful, and distracting, and made him feel completely out of place in a world that was so perfectly constructed that its very nature was lost to him.

The Goddess turned to him only when she had led him through a side door, sitting down upon a day bed and tucking her legs gracefully beneath her. The room was large and airy, with open windows that backlit her and made her almost glow in the afternoon light.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about society at all?” She asked him, and her voice was annoyed, though it was clear from her eyes that the annoyance wasn’t directed at him.

He didn’t respond and she heaved a sigh, smoothing out her skirts in what appeared to be a nervous compulsion, her eyes flickering closed for half a second. “Right. I expected as much. It’s just like Mythal, to leave me with a project that may have no pay off, in the end.” She opened her eyes again and looked at him, feline and proud as she perched on her couch. “Of course it’s not your fault. How could you have known? That woman does whatever she wants, and damn the consequences.”

“I am resigned,” he said at last, and she looked surprised, her eyes narrowing for a half a second as they traced the shape of his lips carefully. “I understand I have no choice but to learn. Whatever you have to teach me, I am willing to submit.”

In reality, he wanted to run, but he was certain Mythal would find him again and drag him back her to learn. She wanted something from him, though he was not sure what. This Goddess, though she was dangerous, was not his to contend with, and would do what Mythal had asked her, but only just that.

After all, here entire demeanor was almost deadly casual about the entire affair.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be quite so well spoken,” the Goddess admitted, and then stood, fluidly walking toward him and biding him to kneel, which he did without complaint. “But I can tell you’re very powerful. Mythal wouldn’t have chosen someone who wasn’t.” Her hands raked through his hair, and he found he didn’t have the energy to insulted at her words or the informality with which she touched him.

“That settles it,” said Sylaise with a tug on his matted locks. “The first thing that will have to go is the hair. There’s simply nothing to be done.”


	10. The Stranger

The magic pulled at him, a subtle thing, tugging at the strands of his hair and unraveling them. He was vaguely amazed at the amount of dirt and debris that came out of it, but most of his attention was claimed by the delicate workings of the magic itself. She was incredible, her precision amazing, the way she manipulated his hair so that it untangled itself and she could better run her hands through it, seeming to test the weight of it.

“You have wonderful hair,” Sylaise said, running her fingers through it. “But it’s so long, and all the split ends…” The Goddess clicked her tongue at him. “You haven’t been groomed in years, have you?”

“I have no idea how long it’s been.”

Fen’Elgar thought back to his days on the farm, his hair short, the sun beating down upon his back as he manned the plow, the work back breaking but, as his “father” had often said, necessary. His hair now was much longer; a previously tangled mess that fell slightly past the middle of his back, and it had been that way for nearly as long as he could remember.

It occurred to him suddenly that he had very little idea how old he actually was.

“You must have been living alone in that forest for more than a few hundred years,” the woman hummed. “Now… Let me think.”

She stood and circled him, reminding him strongly of the wolves for a moment, when they found a quarry that wouldn’t move and were attempting to intimidate it into running. His hair may be her only prey, but he felt instinct flare up in response, and he froze, sitting completely still in the vain hope that she would leave him if he just stood his ground long enough.

Of course, she advanced on him a moment later, standing before him. Her palms glowed with golden light as she raised them, and in a few fell strokes, it seemed that his hair cut itself. Fen’Elgar was awed by the magic, even as he shivered with the sudden chill of air on the side of his head as she shaved him close. The length, at least, was manageable, now falling just between his shoulders, but it seemed she wasn’t finished.

His hair began to weave itself into tight braids, which settled to rest against his back before the next braid began to form. This continued until he had a row of seven or eight braids, resting like tight, dark red ropes against his back.

Sylaise looked at him as though she were a barn cat who had brought the farm wife a mouse.

She bid him to stand, and he ignored the nervousness that churned in his stomach as she took his arm and guided him toward a mirror that stood unassumingly in the corner of the room. Stepping aside, she drew far enough away that he focused on his reflection.

He didn’t recognize the man in the mirror half as well as he would have hoped.


	11. You Clean Up Well

Fen’Elgar stared at himself, reaching up to touch his own face, tracing his cheekbones, his lips, the blades of his ears with his fingers. With a start, he realized he hadn’t seen himself in any sort of mirror since he was gangly and awkward, all elbows and knees, and that whatever he had been when he had left home, he was certainly not that any longer.

In a way, it was almost strange to realize the he had a body. For so long, he had been nothing but his hands and his feet and the width of his body, and sometimes he had been nothing but fur and muscle and sinew. It hadn’t mattered what he had looked like, and so to think of himself as a physical being with boundaries was… It was almost daunting, frightening somehow. As if he had spent his entire life denying a reality that he now had to fight desperately to grasp onto, to even comprehend.

“So handsome,” Sylaise said, placing a hand on his shoulder as she drifted to stand next to him. “I think that this cut emphasizes your eyes, don’t you? A god should always stand out.” He met her eyes through the mirror, standing perfectly still as they stared at one another. “Whatever way you choose to stand out is up to you, but you should at least be presentable while doing it.”

She pulled away and he tore his eyes from his own reflection, focusing on her instead. Something about her was instantly motherly in a way that Mythal hadn’t been, despite her apparent position in the pantheon. He felt like a dirty child who had spent the afternoon rolling in the mud and was being forced to clean up before dinner.

“Now, to at least get you out of those rags,” the woman said. “Are you wearing small clothes?”

“I… Excuse me?” He cleared his throat and fought the redness that threatened to creep up his neck to the tips of his ears.

“I’ll take that as a no. Don’t worry, I’ll have a wardrobe provided, but for now…” Sylaise stuck her head out into the hall and called for a servant, who Fen’Elgar could barely see from where he stood.

A moment later, the servant returned with a robe in hand. It was of a material Fen’Elgar could not identify, but considering he was used to clothing spun from wool or stitched together leathers, that wasn’t particularly surprising. Sylaise gingerly took the fabric, walked toward Fen’Elgar, and deposited the cloth in his arms.

“Get out of that,” she said, motioning to his clothing, “and put on the robes. We’ll have to take your measurements later, but I won’t have you sitting at my table wearing animal skin somehow hewn together with little more than magic and willpower.”

“I…” but before he could truly protest, she was gone, and he was alone with the robe.

Fen’Elgar felt his chest grow momentarily heavy as he looked out the window, watching the branches of the trees sway in a breeze. He missed the forest, not for the first time since leaving it, but resolved himself, turning away from the window and removing his leathers with a wave of his own magic.

He tried to ignore how different casting felt now, how much easier it was to exert even the slightest bit of power.

Tying the sash of the robe around his waist to hold the fabric shut, Fen’Elgar turned to the door and resolved to make something of the life from which there would surely be no escape.


	12. June

He felt uncomfortable at the long table, staring at what seemed to be an endless row of utensils which he had no idea how to begin to use. Shifting awkwardly in his seat, he glanced up at Sylaise, who was looking at him expectantly.

“On the farm,” he began, “we usually ate with our hands or a spoon. I have no idea what any of this is.”

She heaved a sigh and then sat down in the chair adjacent to him, waving her hand until only a spoon, fork, knife and plate remained in front of him. She offered him a small smile, though she look tired, and then clapped her hands. Into the room swept servants of every sort carrying dishes more varied than they were. Fen’Elgar couldn’t help as his mouth fell open and he was assaulted by various scents he had never experienced.

His stomach growled.

“Hungry?” Sylaise asked with a small smile.

“Perhaps slightly,” he said, taking a deep breath as his eyes carefully scanned the spread of food.

Bread, meat, sauces and gravies, glazed vegetables, and other things he had only read of as a boy or heard of from spirits were laid out before him. He wasn’t even sure where to begin, to be honest, not when it would be the first time he had ever sampled these kinds of foods and was immensely hungry.

He was used to just subsisting… This… This was...

“Don’t be shy,” Sylaise’s voice was soft, prompting him to reach out of his own accord and indulge as he wished.

He reached out for small loaf of bread, cleared his throat, tore it apart, and did his very best to try to eat politely in front of her. Fen’Elgar wasn’t used to having an audience while he ate, and certainly wolves and spirits did not care about table manners, but he had the sinking feeling he was going to be judged on how well he ate.

At first, he moved slowly, but eventually decided that he was too hungry to care much. If he was here to learn, at the very least he could demonstrate he appreciated her skill as the head of this estate by taking advantage of her hospitality. Tonight, he would ask Wisdom what they thought the best course of action was.

“Tell me,” Sylaise looked at him from across the table, her green eyes intent. “What is it that you call yourself?”

Fen’Elgar sensed there was some significance in her question, though he wasn’t entirely sure what it was. He knew there were rules regarding names, had recalled lessons from his “parents” as a child, but they were lost on him now. He had been young enough that the memories seemed faded, distant, and unimportant, though he could feel the intent in Sylaise’s gaze.

“I call myself Fen’Elgar,” he said, swallowing a bite of food.

The goddess looked ready to respond, but the words were taken from her before she could.

“Good to know the name of the stranger in my household.” Fen’Elgar turned his head from Sylaise to find a short, broad man with bronze skin standing at the head of the table. “And I suppose I should return the favor. I am June.”


	13. Friends

Fen’Elgar recognized the power of the god immediately, though it was different from the bright burning or Sylaise and the throbbing energy of Mythal. His influence was far more subtle, but omnipresent, a press at the back of Fen’Elgar’s skull.

The man sat down, not looking perturbed in the slightest, and leaned forward too search Fen’Elgar with his eyes. It was different than being looked at by Mythal and Sylaise, who had both seemed to try to peer within him to test the very mettle of his soul. June was more curious than penetrating, that damnable smile still on his lips.

“So why are you here? You must be quite the guest to be eating so fine a spread.” June glanced toward Sylaise, his wife, who was looking back at him with a calm expression on her face. “What happened? He wasn’t here this morning.”

Fen’Elgar swallowed and stared back at the food once more, suddenly having lost his appetite. He was sick of other people talking over him and treating him like a child. Though the dining table was alien and strange to him, he knew a great many things about magic and the natural world that he was certain these two had never experienced. If he were to throw them out in the wilds, they would survive, but only because of their considerable magic and not any sort of skill.

“Mythal brought him here,” Sylaise said. “He’s our guest, _ma uth’lath_.” The woman’s eyes flickered over to him again, and she smiled, though there was nothing kind about it. “The Goddess of Motherhood _Raised_ him. He’s one of us now.”

The look on June’s face was utterly unsurprised, but his lips twitched in annoyance, and he ran his hand over the stubble on his chin almost contemplatively. “ _Of course_. What was I expecting? Something simple?”

Fen’Elgar raised his head to look at them both properly, watching as the God’s brow furrowed even further. June looked back toward him, and the strain on his face eased ever so slightly, his blue eyes far less critical than Fen’Elgar would have expected, considering the way his wife had responded when Mythal had brought Fen’Elgar here.

“This isn’t your fault,” The God of Industry said, strumming his fingers against the table and breathing out through his nose. “You couldn’t have known what she was going to do, not with the way she talks and how she just…. Springs things on people.” He waved his hand as if dismissing the thought and sighed deeply. “Where do you come from?”

“I’m not entirely sure where it is located on a map,” Fen’Elgar relaxed ever so slightly in the presence of this man, who felt far less oppressive and critical than his kin ( _their_ kin, though that felt strange to even acknowledge). “I was born on a farm and have spent a majority of my life roaming the forests of the south.”

Something about that statement made something soft flicker across June’s features and he smiled ever so slightly. “Good. At least she chose another commoner this time. I was really sick of all the jokes.”

The God stood and walked around the table to hold out a hand in the typical gesture of peacemaking he had used to sign off on grain deliveries as a child. “Let’s be friends, Fen. I see no reason to start out on the wrong foot.”

Fen’Elgar hesitated only a moment before taking his hand.


	14. Words of Wisdom

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful, and that night Fen’Elgar slipped into a deep sleep, grateful that he could finally attempt to find and contact his friends. There were many unfamiliar spirits here, drawn to his presence in the night as they had been in the day, though speaking to them had not been his priority. Right now, he wandered through the deep reservoir or the Beyond, the source of magic where the souls of his people drifted while they slept.

He had never felt so connected to the magic. It wasn’t something he had paid attention to before, distracted by the sudden changes in his life, but now that he had time to think about it, he was absolutely thrilled with the sudden boundlessness of his own being. The surging, pulsing, singing energy of the Beyond made it difficult to concentrate for a moment, resonating inside of his core and making his very spirit resonate in response.

Fen’Elgar thought about what he wanted, he thought about the way Wisdom felt, the specific sensation he was awash in in her presence. His closed his eyes, breathing in sharply through his nose, and when he opened his eyes again he was standing in a forest clearing, one he recognized well, though it wavered with an energy that made it something Other.

“My friend,” said a voice, and Fen’Elgar turned his head to see a shape somewhat like a woman, though it glowed from the face and was a solid color. “You’re here at last. I thought that you might come.”

He sat down, crossing one leg over the other and waiting for her to join him in the grass. She looked at him with her eyes, infinite and reflective, glowing with the spark of her life, the being which was Wisdom. “To be honest, I’m not certain what to say,” he began, rolling his hair between the ends of his fingers. “Everything has changed so greatly for me in such a small amount of time. It’s overwhelming.”

“You feel alone,” Wisdom nodded. “But that was to be expected. You have suddenly been thrust into an unfamiliar situation.” She tilted her head to the side and looked at him for a long moment before reaching out to brush a hand down the side of his face. “You burn so brightly now. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

He **_felt_** different, but he didn’t know how to explain the difference to her. Everything had a song of which they were only a very small part, a simple instrument in the grand dance of the universe to which all life swayed, regardless of its intentions. Instead, he focused on his loneliness because it was something he could quantify and comprehend, something which did not make him feel quite so… large.

“Will I ever find my place?” he asked Wisdom, even knowing that she could not see the future. “Or will I forever be adrift, without purpose or direction?”

“Purpose is something you create for yourself,” replied the Spirit, looking at him still with her infinite eyes. “Any place you find must be of your own creation. Someday, you will understand what that means.”

Neither Wisdom nor Fen’Elgar noticed the two birds perched in the nearby branches, a raven and an owl with eyes as bright and as remote as stars.


	15. Natural Talent

“You have a talent for this,” June said with a laugh, running his hand contemplatively over his chin, his blue eyes never leaving Fen’Elgar, who was surrounded by castoff pieces of target. “Magic comes as naturally to you as breathing, doesn’t it?”

Fen’Elgar rubbed his wrists and rolled the tension from his shoulders, feeling the power within him crack and sizzle from the explosions he had just forced from his fingertips. They were all ice and fire, controlled as they were volatile, though far less subtle than other magic he had taught himself to weave in the past years.

“You say that constantly,” he replied, flipping a strand of flyaway hair out of his eyes. “My magical strength should be the least surprising thing to you by now. It was why I was chosen.”

“You were chosen for your ability to master magic as much as your ability to weave it,” Sylaise sat in repose underneath the shade of the veranda, and spoke now, fixing him with the same intense gaze she always did. “If only you were as excellent at mastering courtly greetings.”

There was a time her words would have made Fen’Elgar bristle with frustration, but the time when such things could affect him had long passed. He had spent long enough among their pillared temple home that he recognized their behavior. Sylaise fixed everyone with that gaze, not just him, and June often expressed an open fascination with things he thought could be utilized for the betterment of The People.

“I fail to understand why such greetings are necessary,” Fen’Elgar said, smiling as a Wisp curled about his wrist, drawn to him because of the pull of his magic. “I am god of nothing but myself. I do not have a temple, nor have I amassed worshippers because I am still a secret.”

“And a secret you will remain until I feel you have been trained to my satisfaction,” Sylaise said, her eyes sharp as razors. “Mythal wanted you returned to her custody eventually. I must wonder if she is curious why I have not yet returned her pet project to her.”

At that, annoyance did bristle along the back of Fen’Elgar’s neck, but he kept his emotions in check. He realized Sylaise disapproved by and large of Mythal’s actions and that her ire was due more to the Goddess of Motherhood than it was to him. Fen’Elgar had ascertained by listening to June and Sylaise that they did not approve wholesale of many of the actions of the other deities, especially not when they meddled and upset the progress and order of the loosely related little city states that dotted the countryside. In ages past, they had gone to war with the others, though none enjoyed face Elgar’nan in war, and it was fear of him, as much as anything, that had kept warring to a minimum for the last several millennia.

“You say that as if I will return to her at all,” Fen’Elgar muttered, ignoring or perhaps not noticing the look which June and Sylaise exchanged.


	16. What We Need is a Plan

“You have plans otherwise?” June asked. “I’m sure she’d hunt you down. Or worse, she’d send her Bonded after you. Elgar’nan is a nice enough man, but he’s not the sort you want chasing you across the countryside.” 

Fen’Elgar made a non-committal noise and let the wisp dance across his palm and over his fingertips. He wondered, briefly, what it could become if it were nurtured. A spirit of Compassion, perhaps? Wisdom? Purpose? One day, would the fledgling spark of the pulsing consciousness of the Beyond come to have a personality and will all its own? 

“This is serious.” 

It was Sylaise who drew Fen’Elgar’s attention, her eyes blazing, all the green fled from them for a moment to make them look like living flame. She was terrifying, but Fen’Elgar also knew that her passion was born from a sense of concern for his well-being and the well-being of The People. 

“I know,” he said, watching the wisp dart away through the air, its curiosity satiated. “I am taking it seriously, but this… doesn’t come naturally to me. Not as magic does.”

If he were being honest with himself, it was partially because he has issues understanding the purpose of playing these games. It seemed to him that life should be as straightforward as it was in the forest, or even on the farm. But those who bore the rank of nobility found pleasure in telling lies about their own goals and motivations for the sake of their wealth and the acclimation of power. 

What need had he for power? For wealth? 

“Maybe we’re just approaching this the wrong way,” June muttered, almost to himself. “You grasp table manners well enough, and the proper way to dress. You didn’t have a problem learning our rules for personal conduct, so why is this so hard for you? What makes it more difficult than other things?” 

“There is no point to them,” Fen’Elgar explained. “Life for everyone would be much easier if people said what they meant instead of insisting upon subterfuge. I understand the need to make a good impression, but—“ 

“There are things people can’t say,” Sylaise said. “Subterfuge is necessary because there are people who refuse to reveal their ill-intent. It is our job to protect the people from those who would take advantage of them, and in order to do that, we must speak their language.” 

Fen’Elgar frowned. It was still hard for him to grasp a world he hadn’t seen, a world where people felt lying was necessary to take advantage of others. Life before now had been so simple, and to be so suddenly thrust into a place where he was expected to outplay these insidious individuals was… 

“I think that maybe he needs more exposure to society at large.” June hummed, and looked out into the nearby hallways. “We can’t expect him to understand what’s at risk if we keep him locked up here.” 

Sylaise nodded. “You are right.” 

Fen’Elgar wasn’t certain how to feel.


End file.
